H.M.C.S. Regina K-234

My father served aboard this small Corvette during the Second World War spending several months of his life in its cramped quarters.  Roy Vernon Carmody passed away on 14 March 1989 and I regret not spending a few hours talking about this time in his life.  I am glad that my dad was such a “pack-rat”, a characteristic that I too, have acquired (much to the chagrin of my wife).  I have located his small war diary , newspaper clippings, and his collection of photographs, most of which he actually labelled with names and locations.

Roy was born on 3 August 1923 to Elizabeth Maye Holliday and Josiah Henry Carmody in Ottawa.  During his early years, Roy grew up at 128 Spadina Street and attended Devonshire Public School and the Ottawa Technical High School.

At the age of 18, Roy joined the Royal Canadian Navy on 5 November 1941 as stated on his Attestation Form for men of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve.  Personal description was recorded as follows: height of 5' 7 ¾”, with brown hair and eyes.  His education standing stated third form High School and he was working as an office boy at the Transport Commission at the Union Station. He was given the Regimental Number of V 32249.

Active service commenced on 12 December 1941 with a pay rate of $1.25 per day or $17.00 per month.  This was the start of a dangerous adventure for an 18 year old teenager finally ending with demobilization and final discharge on 21 September 1945.

Given the rank of Ordinary Seaman he began training at HMCS Carleton in Ottawa - the first of several “Stone Frigates” or land bases where he was posted. He was stationed in Ottawa from 5 November 1941 to 27 April 1943 before being transferred to the Regina where he served as the telegraph operator.

Several published sources contain short details of the H.M.C.S Regina and a number of newspaper articles were located.  This history may not contain everything written about the Corvette Regina but it was an honest attempt.

The disasters that overtook Allied arms in the early summer of 1940 had many far-reaching effects, and in Canada one of these effects was that the Royal Canadian Navy decided to accelerate and increase in size a shipbuilding programme which was already an ambitious one.  By the end of 1940 a total of sixty corvettes and thirty-eight Bangor minesweeper/escorts had been ordered for the RCN.  Yet it was not long before it began to appear that even more ships would have to be ordered to enable the Navy to meet its responsibilities;  for one thing, the RCN now had a commitment to supply anti-submarine forces for the defence of Newfoundland and its adjacent waters.  To meet this specific commitment the Naval Staff decided that an additional ten corvettes and twelve Motor Launches would have to be built, and on 3 March 1942 Order-in-Council PC 1525 authorized this addition to the shipbuilding programme.  Among the corvettes ordered at this time was the future HMCS REGINA.

The keel of the ship that was to become REGINA was laid in the yards of Marine Industries Limited, Sorel, P.Q., on 22 March 1941, only a matter of days after the signing of PC 1525, for there was great urgency to get as many ships as possible out of the river before freeze-up.  Work on REGINA would have progressed more rapidly had it not been decided to make some changes in her hull and superstructure.  It had been intended to build all ten newly-ordered vessels on the model of the original, “Flower” Class corvettes, but experience had shown that these ships were somewhat heavy in the bow for work in the rough waters of the North Atlantic and did not have sufficient accommodation for the increased ships’ companies necessitated by the latest anti-submarine gear.  Plans were therefore drawn up to give the corvette a greater sheer and increase the flare of the forward portion of the hull, thereby adding to the buoyancy of the bow.  The short fore-castle of the original corvette was also lengthened considerably to give increased accommodation space, and the bridge was altered to incorporate the improvements suggested by experience.  Plans for these revisions arrived in Canada in April 1941, just in time to be used in the construction of REGINA and the nine corvettes ordered with her.  These ten therefore were the first Revised “Flower” Class corvettes built in Canada.1

The changes in the original drawings, the usual shortages of labour and materials, and the fact that Marine Industries Limited was building at the same time two original “Flower” Class corvettes and four Revised ‘Flowers”, delayed somewhat the work on REGINA, and it was 14 October before she was launched.  Fitting out a ship after launching is always a time-consuming task, and it surprised no one that when freeze-up time approached REGINA was not ready for commissioning.  So great was the need for escorts, however, that it was decided that, ready or not, REGINA would go down the river before the ice became impenetrable;  at ice-free Halifax she could be completed and ready for service within weeks instead of months.

On 21 December REGINA therefore left Sorel for Quebec where she was readied for the passage down river.  Though every effort was made to hasten her departure it was not until 3 January 1942 that REGINA, under the command of her Commanding Officer Designate, Lieutenant-Commander R.F. Harris, RCNVR, sailed for Halifax.  The passage was uneventful and on 6 January the ship arrived safely at Halifax.
 
 

Upon arrival at Halifax, REGINA was at once taken in hand for completion, and by 21 January 1942 she had successfully passed her acceptance trials.  On the following day, 22 January 1942, she was commissioned by Lieutenant-Commander R.F. Harris, RCNVR, as HMCS REGINA and at once began “working up” in preparation for active operations.  The urgency of getting REGINA and her sister escorts to sea was sharply pointed up when U-boats torpedoed four ships in the Canadian zone on the very day of her commissioning.

In spite of the need for haste, however, it was to be some time before REGINA was ready to convoy operations, for she was plagued from the start with boiler, engine, and equipment defects which kept her in harbour for weeks on end.  The Commanding Officer Atlantic Coast allocated her to the Halifax Force on 15 February but it was not until 1 April that she set sail on her first assignment, a search for survivors from the British merchantman HERTFORD which has been torpedoed the day before some 300 miles south of Halifax.  While en route south REGINA was diverted to search for another merchantman, the OCANA, torpedoed in the same general area as the HERTFORD.  REGINA did not succeed in finding her and the HERTFORD survivors had already been picked up by another ship;  she therefore took on board these survivors and returned to Halifax.

HMCS REGINA began her career as an escort vessel at a time when the anti-submarine war in Canadian waters was in a state of change.  The attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941 had brought the United States into the war, and the main consequences of this, so far as the RCN anti-submarine forces were concerned, were a sharp reduction in the number of USN convoy escorts available for work in the North Atlantic and a shifting of the focus of the German Attack southward along the eastern seaboard of the United States and into the Caribbean.  Changes had therefore to be made in the Canadian convoy escort arrangements and the first of these were made in February and March 1942.  The mid-ocean groups of the Newfoundland Escort Force, which formerly had operated from Newfoundland eastward, with their terminus in Iceland, were increased in strength and were given the task of escorting convoys all the way across from a Western Ocean Meeting Point (WESTOMP) off Newfoundland to great Britain.  Londonderry in Northern Ireland became their eastern terminus.  The escorts of the Halifax Escort Force which ran between that port and the meeting point off Newfoundland became the western Local Escort Force and continued to take over convoys at the Halifax Ocean Meeting Point (HOMP), escort them to the Western Ocean Meeting Point, lay-over in St. John’s, escort a return convoy from WESTOMP to the western dispersal point, and then return to Halifax.  In March the system was extended, and some of the WLEF groups were assigned to the newly-organized Halifax-Boston convoys. 

The decrease in the number of USN escorts and the increase in convoy coverage in the early months of 1942 naturally put a sever strain on the British and Canadian anti-submarine forces.  The weather in January was particularly foul, and the strength of escorts groups, which were already pitifully small, was further cut by ships having to lay over in harbour to repair weather damage.  During the month U-boats sank a total of nineteen ships in the Canadian zone.1.   In February the weather improved slightly but the U-boat attacks continued;  fifteen merchantmen were torpedoed off the Canadian east coast.  March saw a slackening of the U-boat attack in the North Atlantic but intensified activity in the waters between Nova Scotia and Cape Cod forced the diversion of escorts to the Halifax-Boston run.  When REGINA began to operate with the WLEF in April, the main activity was still in the Gulf of Maine area, and during the month no ships were torpedoed within sixty miles of the Nova Scotia coast.  Obviously however the cessation of submarine attacks in the immediate vicinity of Nova Scotia was no cause for congratulations as it was due solely to the presence of masses of unescorted shipping to the southward, along the American seaboard;  once convoy was introduced by the USN the submarines would return to Canadian waters.  And there the opening of navigation in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf would, unless withdrawals were made from the already scanty WLEF groups, provide the submarines with many east targets.  Conditions, then, were far from rosy when REGINA set out from Halifax to escort her first convoy.

The first convoy which HMCS REGINA helped escort was the Halifax-United Kingdom convoy SC-79 which sailed on 11 April 19421.  A full gale blew up as SC-79 was leaving, and one of the merchantmen spring a leak and foundered, but otherwise the passage to the Western Ocean Meeting Point (WESTOMP) was uneventful.  There REGINA and her consorts turned over the convoy to a Mid-Ocean Escort Group and put into St. John’s on the 17th.  After three days in St. John’s REGINA and her group on 20 April sailed once more to WESTOMP and picked up the east-bound United Kingdom convoy ON-85 for escort to the Halifax Ocean Meeting Point (HOMP).  Again the passage was uneventful.  Normally REGINA would now have put in to Halifax, but because of the shortage of escorts in the WLEF some of the ships of the WESTOMP-HOMP run, REGINA among them, carried on with that portion of the convoy which was bound for the United States.  After delivering these ships safely REGINA returned at once to Halifax, where she arrived on 25 April after an absence of two weeks.

After a short refit at Halifax, REGINA was off on another circuit, on 7 May 1942, escorting SC-83 out to WESTOMP and to bring ON-92 back.  This time also she carried on with the US portion of the convoy and laid over in Boston for a night before sailing with the Boston-Halifax convoy BX-19.  She arrived back at Halifax on 23 May. 

REGINA’s next mission was to St. John’s where she, HMS VERITY and HMCS HALIFAX sailed on 27 May, unencumbered by convoy duty, in order to assist in escorting an east-bound convoy from WESTOMP.  However, when she arrived at St. John’s next day REGINA was suffering from an engine defect which could not be repaired there;  she therefore had her boilers cleaned and the essential temporary repairs made and sailed on 5 June as escort to a local St. John’s-Halifax convoy, JH-5.

At Halifax Regina’s engine parts were ready and after she had made repairs and undergone another short refit she once more, on 21 June 1942, sailed on convoy escort duty.  This time she was assigned to a Halifax-Boston convoy, XB 26, and henceforth, for the next two months, she remained on this run, taking XB convoys to Boston and bringing BX convoys back to Halifax.  In August REGINA returned once more to the SC/ON runs between HOMP and WESTOMP and, after September when the western terminus of ON convoys was changed from Halifax to New York, between WESTOMP and New York.1.

REGINA, during her early years as an escort vessel must have been a “lucky ship”, for her convoy missions all appear to have been singularly uneventful.  Never, during her service in Canadian waters, did she sight an enemy submarine and only once, so far as the records show, was ship from a convoy she was escorting torpedoed and sunk.

Even then, this one ship was not actually being escorted by REGINA, for she had straggled from BX-27 and was well astern when she was torpedoed.1.  Indeed all the convoys escorted by REGINA in 1942 seemed to bear charmed lives.  In August, REGINA was in the escort which took SC-96 to WESTOMP and SC-96 reached Britain without loosing a ship.  The two previous SC convoys, numbers 94 and 95, had suffered grievously and lost thirteen ships to torpedoes;  the subsequent one, SC-97, lost two.  In September REGINA assisted with the escorting of SC-99 and it arrived safely while SC-100 had four ships torpedoed and sunk.  SC-103, escorted also by REGINA, did lose one ship which straggled from the convoy, but SC-104 took a terrible beating and lost eight. The next convoy after SC-104 to leave North America was HX-211 which REGINA helped escort to HOMP and it did not lose a single ship.  Though this was undoubtedly coincidence, the convoys that REGINA took a hand in escorting had phenomenally good fortune.

In August 1942, while REGINA was working on the Halifax/Boston run, a message from the Admiralty arrived at NSHQ, Ottawa, requesting Canada to contribute as many escort vessels as possible for a projected invasion of North Africa by British and United States troops.  The RCN was anxious to help and after further negotiations agreed to cut its escort strength to, and even beyond, the danger level in order to supply seventeen corvettes for Operation “Torch”, as the North African invasion was called.2  HMCS REGINA was among those chosen to represent the RCN in “Torch”.

The withdrawal of seventeen corvettes from the RCN’s escort forces necessitated major readjustments in the whole system;  for instance, five corvettes had to be transferred from the Pacific to the Atlantic command, seven corvettes withdrawn from the Gulf escort Force, and the groups escorting local convoys stripped to a bare operating minimum to provide additional corvettes and Bangors.  All this re-arranging took time, and a further cause of delay was the necessity of fitting as many of the corvettes as possible with additional Oerlikon guns to meet the increased danger from air attack in the Mediterranean.  Consequently the “Torch” corvettes sailed to Britain, not as a group, but in twos and threes as additional escorts with transatlantic convoys.

Because REGINA had been chosen as one of the last corvettes to sail for Britain it was not until 12 October 1942 that she was placed in Dockyard hands for the fitting of her additional Oerlikons and the making good of all defects in preparation for a transatlantic crossing and an arduous spell of escort duty.  Completing on 26 October, REGINA sailed next day with ALGOMA and MOOSE JAW, escorting the LADY RODNEY and FORT AMHERST to St. John’s.

REGINA, ALGOMA, and MOOSE JAW, the last of the “Torch” corvettes still in Canadian waters, had been assigned as additional escorts to SC-107, and on 29 October all three sailed from St. John’s to join that convoy at WESTOMP.  However, REGINA’s engines, which had been giving trouble since the day she was handed over the RCN, broke down once again, and the ship was forced to return to St. John’s for repairs.  Thus it came about that REGINA, instead of helping escort SC-107 which fought its way through to Britain only after fifteen of its ships had been torpedoed, formed part of the escort of SC-108 which arrived in Britain unharmed on 20 November 1942.

Upon arrival in British waters, REGINA was dispatched to Belfast to be fitted out with new equipment prior to taking up duty on the Great Britain-Mediterranean runs.  Conditions in the Mediterranean were very unlike those encountered in the Canadian coastal zone or in the North Atlantic;  for one thing, air attacks were one of the chief threats to a Mediterranean convoy;  for another, the tactics employed by the Mediterranean U-boats were quite different from those of the Atlantic submarines in that the former attacked singly, using “ambush” tactics, while in the Atlantic the “wolf pack” attack was standard procedure.  REGINA had already had her anti-aircraft armament increased by the addition of four Oerlikons at Halifax;  in Belfast her obsolete radar set and asdic gear were replaced by newer and much more efficient equipment.  When this had been fitted and her defects made good she was ready for “Torch” operations.

The first phase of “Torch” was, of course, over long before REGINA was ready for duty;1.  The actual invasion of North Africa had begun on 8 November and by 11 November French resistance had ceased.  The most difficult part of the operation however was yet to come, the clearing of German forces from Tunisia and the linking up of the “Torch” forces with the British 8th Army advancing from the east, and the chief problem of the Allied naval forces was to protect the long and vulnerable sea communications from North Africa to Britain and the United States.  Masses of shipping were needed to build up the Allied forces in North Africa and keep them supplied, and “Torch” convoys continued to ply to and from Algiers, Casablanca, and other African ports for months after the initial assaults had been successfully made.1.  It was the protection of these “follow up” convoys that was to be REGINA’s main task during her service in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean.

REGINA’s first “Torch” assignment was with KMS-5, a slow convoy from Britain to Gibraltar, which left the Clyde on 11 December 1942.  When only three days out however, rough weather damaged REGINA’s asdic dome and oscillator, making it impossible for her to detect submerged U-boats, and consequently she had to turn back to Londonderry for repairs.  These repairs took time and REGINA was not ready to sail again until the 23rd, when she was dispatched to join the escort of MKS-4 which was due to leave Algiers on Christmas Eve.  It is not known when REGINA joined this convoy which, in any event, reached the United Kingdom after an uneventful passage on 5 January 1943.

Since entering European waters, REGINA had been a part of the Londonderry Escort Force, but in January a change was made.  It has become necessary to re-start the Sierra Leone-United Kingdom convoy cycle which had been stopped in order to provide escorts for “Torch” convoys and to inaugurate a new convoy series to bring tankers direct from the Caribbean to North Africa;  the naval authorities at Gibraltar were therefore ordered to release nine sloops and were to be given in return nine Canadian corvettes.  Among the corvettes which were transferred to the Gibraltar Escort Force was HMCS REGINA.1.

Eight of the nine Canadian corvettes destined for Gibraltar sailed to escort the slow convoy KMS-8 which left the Clyde on 21 January 1943.  Unfortunately, for this convoy operation was an important one for the Canadian ships, no detailed reports of proceedings for KMS-8 are available.  Apparently however the convoy met very heavy weather only a few days out, so heavy indeed that one of the escorts, HMS CORNCRAKE, lost touch on the 25th and was never seen or heard from again, though a thorough search, in which REGINA took part, was carried out.  No further incidents seem to have occurred until after KMS-8 entered the Mediterranean, which it did on 5 February. 

 By 1800 on the 6th the convoy had reached a point a few miles east of Oran when the enemy launched an attack with aircraft and submarines.  One of the aerial torpedoes struck HMCS LOUISBURG which sank in a matter of minutes with heavy loss of life;  the merchantman FORT BABINE was also hit but remained afloat and was towed to safety.  A few hours later, shortly after 0100 on the morning of 7 February, KMS-8 was again attacked, this time by submarines which torpedoed SS EMPIRE BANNER and SS EMPIRE WEBSTER and sank the latter.  Another U-boat attack would undoubtedly have been made at about 0500 had not HMCS CAMROSE detected a submarine and carried out a vigorous counter attack which apparently frightened it off.  An hour later however the aircraft returned and picked off the SS EMPIRE BANNER which was struggling back to Oran.

Apparently when the convoy passed Algiers, REGINA detached to repair some minor defects.  These cannot have been serious however, for the next day she was en route with the Bangor minesweeper HMS RHYL escorting two stragglers from KMS-8 to Bone.  On the night of the 8th, REGINA was sweeping some 4,000 yards (two miles) off the port bow of the convoy, with RHYL about the same distance on the starboard bow, when at about 2310 the radar operator detected the faint echo of an object about three miles ahead and slightly to port of the convoy course.  REGINA at once altered toward and sped forward to investigate, and within moments it was fairly obvious that the ship was in contact with a submarine.  HMS RHYL was warned and speed was increased, and a minute or two later all doubts about the identity of the contact were dispelled when the radar echo disappeared and the asdic picked up an underwater contact in the same area.  The asdic showed a range of 1,000 yards and REGINA raced in at 16 knots to attack.  At 100 yards the contact was lost but the corvette fired a pattern of ten depth charges on the estimated position of the target and then ran out to 1,000 
yards before reversing course and coming back on the reciprocal track. 

Meanwhile the enemy was in terrible difficulty.  On sighting REGINA charging in at what was estimated at about 600 yards range, the submarine dived and altered course sharply, coming to a stop at a depth of about 200 feet.  Almost immediately a depth charge exploded aft, starting some of the plates in the pressure hull and causing small leaks, as well as extinguishing all the lights.  Seconds later another charge burst, this one abreast the conning tower, and then a third, immediately below the bows.  Inside the submarine all was confusion.  Not much water was coming in but what was important was that the after trimming pump had been put out of action and the boat was slowly sinking by the stern due to holing of the ballast tanks.  There was nothing for it but to blow all tanks and try to run away on the surface.

Surfacing was but to change one danger for another.  The depth charges had buckled the forward torpedo-tubes and rendered them useless and had put the training gear of the one 3.9” gun out of action, leaving the battered submarine with an effective armament of one twin and one single 13.2 mm. Breda machine-guns.  Worse still, when the diesels were started and an attempt made to run away, it was found that the steering gear had jammed, making it impossible to maintain a straight course.  At this moment, REGINA, running in for a second attack, spotted the phosphorescence set up by the churning propellers and opened fire with the bridge Oerlikons.  The time was 2328;  just 18 minutes after the radar operator had detected the first, faint echo.

Regina’s oerlikon fire was answered by several bursts from the Bredas which hit the wheelhouse and bridge but caused no casualties.1.  Then the corvette’s 4-inch gun, guided by tracer from the Oerlikons which were consistently hitting the submarine, opened fire and, with a direct hit on the conning tower which killed both the Commanding Officer and his First Lieutenant, put an end to all semblance of resistance.  Lieutenant-Commander Freeland, REGINA’s Command Officer, has intended to ram, but when he saw that at least some of the submarine’s crew were abandoning ship and shouting for help he swerved away and illuminated the enemy boat with the signal projector.

Ordering those who were still cowering on deck to keep the boat afloat “or else”, REGINA carried out a rapid search of the surrounding area to check for possible submarines before sending away a boarding party.  Led by the First Lieutenant, the party boarded and made a quick survey of REGINA’s victim.  She was the Italian submarine AVORIO, on her sixth and last wartime patrol, and she was in a very precarious state.  Water was still coming in, particularly at the after end, and she was slowly settling by the stern as the pumps could not be started.  Water was also pouring into the holed ballast tanks, steadily reducing the buoyancy of the boat.  Fortunately however the magazine where the scuttling charges were stored had been flooded, preventing the Italians from setting them.  After assessing the situation the boarding party decided that there was a slight chance of salvaging their victim, and REGINA requested RHYL to send for a tug.  The remaining prisoners on board, except for the CERA1.  And a Petty Officer mechanic, were then transferred aboard REGINA to join the survivors who had been picked out of the water,1. And the boarding party set to work to prepare AVORIO for the two.

REGINA continued to search the surrounding area for possible submarines until 0345 when the tug JAUNTY arrived.  Conditions in the submarine had worsened considerably since the tug was first called for but it was decided to make the attempt to tow her in.  By 0500, however, it was obvious that AVORIO was sinking and a boat was sent from REGINA to take off the boarding party and the two Italian prisoners.  Fifteen minutes later the submarine slowly began to sink, finally slipping stern first under the water, leaving those on board to swim to the boat which was by now some 200 yards away.  Recovering her boat, REGINA steamed for Bone with her prisoners to receive the hearty congratulations of her group as the third Canadian corvette of the “Torch” force to sink an enemy submarine.3.

Though REGINA was to remain in the Mediterranean for another month, apparently her service with the Gibraltar Escort Force was more or less routine;  at least she was involved in no action so spectacular as her sinking of AVORIO.  Records are scanty, but it is known that, following her successful attack, she left Bone on 9 February to escort ET-11, a local Bone-Gibraltar convoy, and arrived safely at Gibraltar on 13 February.  It is also known that she was dispatched from Gibraltar on 21 February to intercept and bring in the Portuguese SS NYASSA, a mission she successfully carried out, and that early in March she escorted a tug from Gibraltar to bring in the SS FORT PASCOYAX which has been torpedoed while with KMS-10.

By early March the service of the Canadian corvettes in the Mediterranean was nearing its end.  When these ships were released for “Torch” operations the understanding had been that they would be returned in time for them to be ready for the opening of navigation in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf and for the intensification of the U-boat offensive in the North Atlantic which the Admiralty expected would come with improving weather conditions in the spring.  Navigation in the St. Lawrence was due to open about 15 April and in the North Atlantic the U-boat offensive had already begun.1.  when early in March REGINA joined the Canadian escort of MKS-91.  For the first leg of her journey home.

The passage of MKS-9 was not entirely uneventful.  On 12 March a Focke-Wulf “Kurier” attacked the convoy but failed to secure any hits.  ON the following day, shortly after dark, HMCS PRESCOTT made contact with a U-boat which was attempting to penetrate the escort screen.  While running in for a depth-charge attack on the first U-boat and the second one managed to dive before being hit, but PRESCOTT’s alertness certainly saved the convoy from attack, and it arrived safely in the United Kingdom.

After a short stay at Londonderry, during which a few minor defects were put right, REGINA, accompanied by BADDECK and PRESCOTT, joined the Royal Navy escort group B-3 as additional escorts for ON-174.  This convoy, leaving Liverpool on 21 March 1943, eluded completely the hordes of U-boats, well over a hundred, which at this time infested the North Atlantic shipping lanes, and probably the nearest it came to danger was when it steamed at 9 ½ knots in thick fog through an area of seal filled with icebergs.1.  Surviving the dangers of U-boats, icebergs, and the weather which, after the first week, was “perfectly vile and foul”,1. ON-174 was delivered intact to the local escort at WESTOMP on 2 April, whereupon REGINA, BADDECK, and PRESCOTT made for Halifax.

REGINA by this time was due for an extended refit, but because of a shortage of escorts she was given only a short, ten-day refit at Halifax before being again pressed into service.  From mid-April to early June she worked with the local groups, on the Halifax-WESTOMP-St. John’s run except for one assignment with ON-179 to New York and HX-239 back to HOMP.  Finally, on 2 June 1943 she sailed from Halifax under orders to escort HJ-57 to St. John’s and then return independently to Sydney to go into refit.

On 9 June 1943 REGINA was delivered to shipyard hands at Sydney to begin what turned out to be an exceedingly long refit.  Originally it had been estimated that the refit would be fully completed by 30 November, but in mid-October it became necessary to transfer REGINA from Sydney to Pictou to ensure that she would not be frozen in for the winter.  At Pictou the major part of her refit was completed and she sailed on 21 December to Halifax for the fitting of some new equipment and armament.  Towards the end of January 1944 REGINA was almost ready, but the press of work at Halifax prevented her from being docked there so it was decided to send her to Shelburne.

REGINA was about to sail for Shelburne when, on the night of 3 February, the SS IOCOLITE, a straggler from HF-99, reported that her engines had failed and she required a tow.  REGINA was therefore ordered to sail and screen ICOLITE and her towing tug, FOUNDATION SECURITY, until they reached Shelburne.  When REGINA reached ICOLITE’s position the tug has not yet arrived, so she herself took the tow and brought the disabled ship to the Shelburne approaches where the tug took over.  REGINA  thereupon made for Halifax, sailing again on 7 February for Shelburne.  At Shelburne, REGINA was hauled out and had some minor repairs made before she returned again to Halifax on 17 February.

REGINA’s refit was not complete, more than eight months after it began, and she was ready for service.  She was not destined to return to the Halifax-St. John’s-New York runs, however, for once again she had been chosen for special operations. Plans were far advanced by February 1944 for an assault on the Normandy coast, and REGINA had been chosen to take part as one of the nineteen corvettes being contributed by the RCN.  Consequently, on 23 February, she was formally transferred from the Western Escort Force (the former WLEF) to the Mid-Ocean Escort Force for duty with escort group C-1. 

On the very day she was transferred to her new group REGINA sailed from Halifax.  Because of ice conditions at St. John’s she was unable to enter the port and was diverted to Argentina where she joined her new group, C-1, on 27 February.

After a three-day layover at Argentina, C-1 sailed on 1 March to join SC-154 at WESTOMP and escort it to Britain.  When the group picked up the convoy on the morning of the 2nd the weather was not particularly pleasant and by next day a full gale was blowing.  By the morning of the 4th it had moderated somewhat and the Senior Officer decided to top us his corvettes with fuel.  No sooner had REGINA got alongside the tanker, however, when the wind began to rise again and the Senior Officer decided to postpone the fuelling of the other ships.  Meanwhile REGINA had hooked up her lines and everything was proceeding satisfactorily despite the rising seas.  Suddenly a sea larger than its fellows struck both ships causing them to lurch together.  As the ships yawed the lines connecting them dipped into the water;  REGINA’s screw picked up one of these and jammed.  A single screw ship, REGINA slowly lost momentum and lay dead in the water.

The convoy of course could not stop and all ships continued on except HMC Ships ST. LAURENT and VALLEYFIELD had a diver on board but he could do nothing because of the high seas so the destroyer, with considerable difficulty, got a line aboard REGINA, and with VALLEYFIELD screening, began to tow her towards the Azores.  The tow line did not last for long, and the rescue vessel DUNDEE who was the convoy was ordered back to try her luck with the towing while ST. LAURENT returned to her escort duties.1.  DUNDEE’s towing hawser proved more durable than ST. LAURENT’s and she continued the tow until relieved by the salvage tug SALVONIA from the Azores.  Early on 10 March, REGINA, in tow of SALVONIA and screened by VALLEYFIELD and DUNDEE, arrived safely at Horta in the Azores.  After repairing there, REGINA, accompanied by VALLEYFIELD, set course for Londonderry where they arrived on 20 April.

The nineteen Canadian corvettes chosen for “Nepture”,2 after all defects they might have were repaired any old or obsolete equipment had been replaced, were given a period of intensive training to ready them for their new duties.  All were thoroughly experienced in convoy escort work, but the escort work they would have to do during “Neptune” likely to be considerably different from that to which they were accustomed.  In the English Channel, the main threats would be the “E” or “R-boats”1. And the aircraft, rather than the U-boat.  The convoys would also be different;  instead of the large, “rectangular”, Atlantic Convoys, formed on a broad front, there would be long, strung-out convoys designed to fit the narrow swept channels through the mine fields.  Intensive training, followed by a realistic battle exercise, was designed to teach the corvettes the best tactics to employ when they began active operations in the Channel in support of “Neptune”.

Towards the end of April REGINA was ready to begin operations.  “D” Day was still several weeks off but there was a great deal of preliminary work to be done escorting the multitudinous craft destined for “Neptune: from their bases in various parts of the British Isles to the forming-up ports in the south of England.  For the next few weeks REGINA, from her base at Portsmouth, was engaged in this work, usually plying between the Nore and Portsmouth with an occasional foray westward to Falmouth.  As “D” Day approached she sailed from Milford Haven where she arrived on 5 June.

On the following day, 6 June 1944, as the Allies stormed ashore in Normandy, REGINA, accompanied by HMC Ships WOODSTOCK and SUMMERSIDE, set out on her first invasion assignment, escorting the follow-up convoy EBM-2 from Milford to the beaches.  EBM-2, like most of the other ‘Neptune” convoys, encountered no opposition from sea or air and arrived off the beaches on the morning of the 7th.  Picking up a convoy of  “empties”, REGINA and her consorts then returned, again without encountering opposition, to Portsmouth.

For the next two months REGINA continued to serve with the forces supporting the Allies military operations in France.  Usually her duties involved the escorting of convoys or individual ships but occasionally she was assigned to anti-submarine patrols.  Early in August she had the melancholy duty of escorting HMCS MATANE who had been severely damaged on 20 July by a “glider bomb” launched by a German aircraft and was being towed from Plymouth to Oban for repairs.

When, on the morning of 8 August, REGINA set out from Milford Haven as the sole escort of EBC-66 bound for the Normandy beach head, there was no reason to suppose that this would not be just another routine convoy mission.  By evening the convoy of ten merchantmen, disposed in two columns of five, was passing down the north Cornish coast, with REGINA steering a broad zig-zag course about a mile ahead.  It was a fine evening, unusually clear, and the sea was calm with but a slight swell.

EBC-66 was about eight miles off Trevose Head when, at 1930OZ, there was a heavy explosion in the third ship of the starboard column, the American merchantman EZRA WESTON.  REGINA immediately signaled and was told by EZRA WESTOIN that she had struck a mine.  Ordering the LCT-644 which was the last ship in the port column to “Stand by”, REGINA made for the disabled vessel, carrying out an asdic sweep for mines as she did so.  As WESTON was still able to steam, though but very slowly, it was decided to try to beach her near Padstow which was only a few miles away.  Though she was settling low in the water forward due to a large hole in her bow, WESTON was able to make about three knots and there was a good possibility that she might make shore.

The damage, however, was greater than had been thought, and the merchantman continued to settle by the bows.  At about 2000Z, half an hour after she had been hit, WESTON stopped engines and requested REGINA to close on the port side and try to estimate the damage.  By this time the hole in the bows was completely underwater, and REGINA’s Commanding Officer considered that the ship’s back was broken.  LCT-644 was ordered to close WESTON and take off all the crew except the captain and three officers who wished to say with the ship until she either sank or was beached.

REGINA now made what was later considered to have been a serious error of judgment, for while LCT-644 was taking aboard the crew of the WESTON she stopped engines and lay off about 300 yards to supervise the rescue.  After taking off survivors, LCT-644 got a line aboard WESTON and began to tow her, stern first, towards shore.  At this moment, about 2045Z, there was a violent explosion and REGINA, who was not yet under way but who was drifting slightly with the tide, disappeared in a great plume of water and spray.  Within thirty seconds there was nothing left to show that REGINA had been there except the survivors and the debris floating on the surface.1.

LCT-644 cut her tow at once and began to search for survivors.  Within the next three hours all who were still afloat, sixty-six officers and men in all, had been picked up, and the LCT set course for Padstow.  One officer and twenty-seven men had gone down with the ship, and two of the seamen rescued by LCT-644 died of their injuries before reaching port.  Not a single member of the engine room complement survived, indicating that either the boilers or the magazine had blown up when the ship was hit.

The explosion which destroyed REGINA had been sighted by a passing British naval trawler, the JACQUES MORGAND, who closed at full speed to assist in the rescue operations.  After lowering her sea boat to assist the LCT in picking up  survivors, the trawler closed EZRA WESTON and took off the captain and his three officers.  A short time later the merchantman broke in two and sank.  The sea boat located a Carley float to which REGINA’s Commanding Officer and ten seamen were clinging and towed it to the LCT.

When the tank landing craft had picked up the last of the survivors she at once set course for Padstow at her top speed of seven knots.  Over 200 survivors from the two sunken ships were aboard, and all of those from REGINA were suffering either from the effects of shock or having swallowed fuel oil when in the water:  ten of them were seriously injured and required immediate medical attention.  Among the survivors was a Medical Officer, Surgeon-Lieutenant G.A. Gould, RCNVR, and he, although suffering himself from badly bruised ribs and from the effects of having swallowed fuel oil, tended to the needs of the critically wounded. The LCT’s quarterdeck was converted into an operating room and there Surgeon-Lieutenant Gould administered emergency treatment.  One of REGINA’s Engine Room Artificers had his left leg badly mangled, and in the light of torches and with makeshift equipment the Surgeon-Lieutenant performed a successful amputation.

When the LCT reached the entrance of Padstow Harbour at about 0315Z on the 9th it was low water and the craft could not be taken in.  Because of the condition of some of the survivors an RAF rescue launch was sent out to take off the more seriously injured.  Surgeon-Lieutenant Gould also went aboard the launch and accompanied the wounded to hospital.  Only two of the survivors had died en route to Padstow, and all told there were sixty-four survivors from REGINA, including the Commanding Officer.

The Board of Inquiry which was held to investigate the loss of REGINA was unable to reach a decision as to whether the ship had been mined, as most of the ship’s company thought, or whether it had been torpedoed by a U-boat lurking inshore of the convoy lane.  Minesweepers could find no evidence of any mines having been laid in the area of REGINA’s sinking, however, and later assessments by Admiralty experts leaned to the view that both EZRA WESTON and REGINA had in fact been torpedoed.

Though REGINA finally succumbed to the enemy her loss came only after she had compiled an impressive record of long and praiseworthy service.  For two and a half years, which included the most critical months of the war, she had efficiently performed the work for which she was built, in waters ranging from the stormy seas off Nova Scotia and Newfoundland to the quiet, blue waters of the Mediterranean.  Indeed it might be said that she had done more than was expected of her, for very few were the corvettes that could claim to have sunk an enemy submarine single handed.  As yet no other ship of the Royal Canadian Navy has been given the name HMCS REGINA, but if ever such a ship is commissioned she will inherit a proud history and an impressive list of battle honours, won by the Canadian corvette REGINA, first of name.

The White Ensign Flying Above the H.M.C.S. Regina